With All My Love
About the Author
Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the
Open Door
series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.
Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.
Also by Patricia Scanlan
Apartment 3B
Finishing Touches
Foreign Affairs
Promises, Promises
Mirror Mirror
Francesca’s Party
Two for Joy
Double Wedding
Divided Loyalties
Coming Home
Trilogies
City Girl
City Lives
City Woman
Forgive and Forget
Happy Ever After
Love and Marriage
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013
A CBS Company
Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Sailor
Words & Music by Fini Busch, David West & Werner Scharfenberger
© Copyright 1961 Universal/MCA Music Limited.
All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
Used by permission of Music Sales Limited.
Seeman
Words & Music by Werber Scharfenberger & Fini Busch
© 1959 Hermann Schneider Buehnen-Musikalienverlags (AUME)
All Rights Reserved
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HB ISBN: 978-1-47111-076-4
TRADE PB ISBN: 978-1-47111-077-1
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47111-079-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Dublin
November 12th, 2012
Dear readers,
It’s been more than twenty-two years since
City Girl
, my first novel, was published and I wanted to thank you for all your support down the years. You have been such loyal readers and I’m so grateful to all of you.
To my new readers, a warm welcome also. I hope you enjoy
With All My Love
as much as I enjoyed writing it and that you will like my other books.
I am now on Facebook and to all of my readers who have contacted me there, a big thank you. I love being able to interact with you and keep you updated about events and signings and the progress of my novels as I’m writing them. And it’s great getting your feedback and hearing your news.
So, dear readers, Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!
With all my love,
Patricia xxx
I dedicate this book with huge gratitude to the following men who have enhanced my house and my life. Their professionalism and good-humoured kindness was much appreciated. So to Mark Kennedy and Dara Mulhern for the lovely plans and to Philip Halton and James Igoe (the apostles) of Halton Construction, and their terrific team, Doril, Tomas, Robbie, Mark, Bruce, Rupert, Eddie and the gang, you did a fantastic job and I’m very grateful to all of you. XXX
When the heart weeps for what is lost. The spirit laughs for what it has found.
Sufi saying
C
ONTENTS
P
ROLOGUE
He could feel the heat of the sun streaming over him, and had a flash of vibrant memory of lying with his brother in a field of prickly golden stubble, the scent of new-cut straw filling his nostrils, the drone of the tractor fading as it drove away, towing its bounty of neat bales to the nearby farm.
As adrenalin surged through him he raised his face to the blue immensity of sky, reaching higher, higher, every muscle, ligament and fibre protesting as he strained to reach his target. His hands curved around the hard leather of the ball and Jeff felt a rush of emotions, triumph, joy, and deep satisfaction that nothing else in life could equal. Every aching bone, every second of weary exhaustion from the punishing training regime he followed was worth it for this moment.
The roar of the crowd lifted him higher. The shiny red faces of the men he soared over, a blur in the bright sunlight. If only Valerie were here to see this, he thought with a brief pang of regret as his hands tightened around his prize and he plotted the optimum trajectory towards the goalmouth. But Valerie didn’t like football. She resented the time he spent training. He should be spending it with her and their young daughter, she’d say. He hated how she made him feel guilty about his passion. It took the good out of moments like this. He twisted on the downward descent, elbowing his marker in the shoulder as he tried to grab the ball from him, clearing his way to prepare his onslaught on the box.
The pain hit, gripping him like a vice, forcing the breath out of his lungs, and bringing him to his knees. The roar of the crowd faded. Surprise and shock staggered him. He crumpled to the ground and saw the blue of the sky briefly before the darkness enveloped him.
And then it seemed that only a moment had passed and brightness bathed him in a soft light as he opened his eyes and felt a wondrous sense of wellbeing. Thank God for that, Jeff thought, relieved. He felt so well, so fit, so . . . so . . .
perfect.
Perhaps he’d imagined that brief, shocking jolt of pain. Or maybe he was in hospital and they had injected him. That must be it. He had no memory of getting there, no memory of being in an ambulance. He must have been out like a light.
Had they won the match? He’d liked to have scored that goal; it would have been a beauty, one of his best, he mused, feeling utterly relaxed. Whatever they’d given him was working a treat. The light drew closer and his eyes widened . . .
Everything was going to be absolutely fine, Jeff knew as he recognized his beloved grandmother coming towards him, smiling at him as he took her outstretched hand.
C
HAPTER
O
NE
Briony McAllister felt the glorious heat of the Mediterranean sun on her upturned face as she contemplated the cobalt sky above her and felt the tension ease out of her body, dissipating into the soft green tartan rug she was lying on. Little cotton puffs of clouds drifted over the sharp-ridged peaks of the sierras to the north, and the breeze whispered through the pine trees.
Beside her, her 4-year-old daughter, Katie, was engrossed in plaiting her Moxie Girl’s hair. It was a Sunday afternoon in September and a somnolent, peaceful air pervaded the Parque Princessa Diana, a pretty park on the Costa del Sol. Katie had wanted to go there instead of the beach, the swings and modest playground being a big attraction. Thankfully, she was now happy to play with her dolls after twenty minutes of blissful soaring back and forth on the swings, and Briony was content to lie drowsily in the late afternoon sun, her novel unopened beside her.
Riviera, a small town on Spain’s southern coast, was empty of tourists, who had long gone back to their jobs and mundane lives, their Costa holiday a faded summer’s dream. Where once older couples and retired ex-pats would have filled the many restaurants and coffee shops, the recession had ensured that the Costa del Sol was decimated after many years of lavish boom. Briony knew full well the effects of economic collapse. She, too, should have been back behind her desk, dealing with the thousand and one queries that came with being an administrator in a busy private hospital. But life as she knew it had changed completely the day, two months previously, when the owners of the Olympus Sports clinic had called staff together and told them that due to the current economic climate and falling patient numbers, redundancies would have to be made.
Briony knew, even before it was her turn to meet with HR, that she would be one of the staff to be ‘let go’. She had been last into the department, having left a similar position in a big teaching hospital the previous year to work nearer home and closer to her daughter’s crèche.